City Government

Setbacks and Successes for Education Councils

Despite frustrations and setbacks, the community
education councils that replaced the 32 community
school boards last fall were more effective in their
first year than many observers expected, and parents
say the councils may become more powerful as they
learn to flex their political muscles.

The first year was difficult for the councils, which
are made up mostly of public school parents and
elected largely by officials of school parents
association. Some council members complain about what
they consider a dismissive attitude by the Department
of Education. They are dismayed that Chancellor Joel
Klein removed the one clear power the councils had --
to determine school choice and magnet programs. In
poor neighborhoods in particular, the councils have
had difficulty attracting enough members, and many
don't have the full complement of nine parents.

The experiences of one council member, David
Bloomfield, chair of the Graduate Program in
Educational Leadership at Brooklyn College and first
vice president of the Citywide Council on High
Schools, reflect those of many council members. "My
chief frustration was the perception that the
Department of Education had created the council as
window dressing," Bloomfield
writes in an article
for Inside Schools. "Rarely was there a sense of
welcomed collaboration between the parents on the
board and Department of Education officials."

Despite this, he says, there were successes. When the
council publicized complaints it had received from
parents, an article appeared in the Daily News. This,
Bloomfield writes, prompted the Department pf
Education to appoint an executive director for
secondary schools and to revamp its policies on
admission to high school.

Other councils point to success too.

On Manhattan's West Side, parents who thought
admissions procedures discriminated against poor and
working class Latino families were able to get a
hearing. On the East Side, parents upset by the
progressive math curriculum aired their concerns. And
a community council member from Queens says he is
impressed by the clout the council gives parents.

"I've been empowered to a degree I wouldn't have
thought possible," Jeffrey Guyton, a council member
from District 30 in Long Island City, said in a letter
to the New York Times this spring. "I've helped to get
a leaking roof repaired and am organizing a seminar on
asthma at PS 2, among other things."

When the legislature gave the mayor control of the
city schools, it dissolved the 32 community school
boards and replaced them with 32 "community
education
councils"
each with nine parents elected by parents
associations, two ember appointed by the borough
president and one high school senior, who does not get
a vote. These councils are supposed to approve
boundaries between schools, review educational
programs, evaluate supervisors, and make
recommendations on building use. The legislature also
created the council on high schools and a council for
special education. The first councils were selected
for one-year terms, but the next set will serve two,
starting in the fall.

There have been difficulties. Resignations, dismissals
and unfilled vacancies meant that almost half of the
32 councils did not have their full complement of nine
parent members on January 3, 2005, according to a
report prepared by Carolyn Prager of Advocates for
Public Representation in Public Education. Because a
great many of those who did finish their terms did not
run for re-election or were defeated, there will be a
huge turnover in the councils in the fall. Almost as
worrisome, the turnout in the election limited to
three parent association officers in each school was
dismal.

Indeed, in some poor neighborhoods parents feel as
frustrated as ever. "We have no power at all," Glenn
Simmons of the council for District 32 in the Bushwick
section of Brooklyn told the Daily News. "Our members
resigned because they were unhappy. If you want to
make a difference in schools, community education
councils are not the place to do it." Christian
Rodriguez, a member of District 22 in Flatbush told
the Daily News that many parents were chased away by
frustration. "If you come into the situation cold,
like a lot of parents did this year, it really is a
shock to your system," he said.

The bureaucracy seemed to conspire against the
councils. Members learned that they did not have the
free access to schools that their predecessors on the
community school boards enjoyed; rather, they could
visit only if the principal agreed. They were upset
when, without consultation, the chancellor revised a
regulation -- A-185 -- on zoning to remove their
ability to designate magnet schools and school choice
programs in their districts.

By spring, members were grappling with onerous
conflict of interest regulations that required them to
disclose their personal finances - and perhaps be
removed from the council - if they had even a remote
connection to a group or company that does business
with the Department of Education. A council member in
District 13 in Brooklyn faced disqualification because
she worked for Verizon, the telephone company, which
does business with the school system. "You've got to
be kidding," Carmen Colon, president of the District
13 council, told the New York Times. "She has nothing
to do with contracts. She's a clerk." Colon said
excessive paperwork discouraged civic-minded parents
from running for office.

Despite these problems, some councils took on
important issues. Darlene Vanasco, a parent, attended
a District 15 meeting in Brooklyn on a middle school
initiative and small class size. "The dedication of
the people on the council has been incredible," she
said. "They are tenacious, smart and informed and I do
believe they can really make a difference over time."

District 3's council was instrumental in airing the
Center for Immigrant Families' report on what it
called de facto segregation in the gifted programs on
Manhattan's West Side. District 2, also in Manhattan,
held three forums on the math curriculum. Serena
Brown, newly elected to the panel, said the middle
school admissions process was greatly improved with
the help of the council. According to Catherine
Skopec, a parent who has attended nearly all District
2 council meetings, the panel really listened and there was some movement on
some issues."

In December many of the councils banded together in
an Association of New York City Education Councils to
help solve their problems. They engaged civil rights
attorney Norman Siegel as counsel. Besides public
representation, the group provides members with
technical assistance on such matters as how to read
budgets, placing emphasis on the capital budget that
councils are supposed to approve.

"I think the councils had a lot of great ideas," said
Vanasco. "I also think they feel quite hobbled in
instituting the ideas. The issue is not whether they
could be effective. The issue is how. Some feel a lot
of work was put in with not enough hard results to
show for it. However, I do think we need to be
patient. Change happens over time."

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